Wine, Cedega, and CXGames Benchmark Comparision

In one of my earlier postings I did a compare and contrast of the various different features Cedega and Codeweavers offer. Today I am going to try leave my opinions aside and stick strictly to the numbers. Source Engine games are some of the most popular played today so I feel it is only fitting I use them to test the Wine software we have today.

The Test: I will be running an FPS test under both the original source engine (Counter Strike: Source) and the latest version of the source engine (Left 4 Dead). For each test I used the same detail settings and tested each game at three different resolutions, using each Wine, CXGames, and Cedega.

The Hardware: While my hardware is not fastest in the world it is (as of posting this) relatively new and decently quick. Processor - Intel p9700 2.8ghz Dual Core, RAM - 4gigs of DDR3, Video Card: nVidia 260m with 1gig DDR3 dedicated memory.

The Software: Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty), 64bit. Running the nVidia 190.42 driver

The Wine Programs Used: The following test results where obtained using CXGames 8.0.0, Cedega 7.3.3, and a vanilla install of Wine 1.1.32 (all latest versions as of today).

The Results:

Counter Strike - Source

• Resolution: 1680x1050
• - Wine: 72.29 fps
• - CXGames: 153.03 fps
• - Cedega: 113.83 fps
• Resolution: 1024x768
• - Wine: 49.33 fps
• - CXGames: 163.03 fps
• - Cedega: 119.22 fps
• Resolution: 640x480
• - Wine: 63.23 fps
• - CXGames: 179.94 fps
• - Cedega: n/a

Left 4 Dead

• Resolution: 1680x1050
• - Wine: 12.41 fps
• - CXGames: 25.46 fps
• - Cedega: 31.69 fps
• Resolution: 1024x768
• - Wine: 25.37 fps
• - CXGames: 20.25 fps
• - Cedega: 68.34 fps
• Resolution: 640x480
• - Wine: 20.7 fps
• - CXGames: 22.05 fps
• - Cedega: 67.83 fps

Things Worth Noting: As you can see all three are able to perform the first test at a relatively decent FPS - however both Cedega and CXGames far out perform a vanilla Wine install. Also worth noting is the fact that Wine actually took a performance decrease when running at lower resolutions (I was very surprised by this, in fact I ran the test three times at each resolution just to confirm it was accurate). I'd like to point out as well that Cedega failed to load CSS for me in the 640x480 resolution - thus the n/a score.

Left 4 Dead is where we really see a difference between the different pieces of software. Both Wine and CXGames where unable to break the 30fps marker while Cedega was able to snag 31fps on my high resolution and over twice that frame rate on lower resolutions.

Wrapping Up: Please remember to take my above listed scores with a grain of salt - as your own mileage may very well vary depending on your particular configuration. Also remember the Wine install I used was a vanilla install. Meaning that odds are it could stand to be tweaked a bit to get a slightly better frame rate. Lastly remember when trying to get the most out of your Linux Gaming experience be sure to optimize where ever you can.

~Jeff Hoogland
Please note while these benchmark scores presented are accurate to the best of my abilities, they only represent my personal hardware and software configurations. Your results on your own system(s) may vary (and if they do, please share them!).